IN LIVING COLOR
The neighborhood looks different, older, a little tired. Like me. Of course everything looks different if you add over forty-five years to the equation.
As I drove north on the street my mom still lives on, a memory hit me. I don’t have a lot of choice as to when I stroll down memory lane, especially when I’m driving on the lanes of my childhood. I looked for the house on the east side of Eastwind.
Back in the day it sat all by its lonesome. All those vacant lots are history. I searched for the short and steep driveway. The once offensive bright orange front door was long gone or painted.
I was hanging out with my buddy Dave D. All kids in junior high are looking for fun… Even if the fun is at the expense of someone else. Using the telephone to ask the local store owners if they had Prince Albert in the can doesn’t last all night… especially in a small town with only a couple of stores.
Occasionally we’d knock on a door or ring a doorbell and run like the wind. I admit that night it was my idea. It was my neighborhood after all.
I slowed my truck to a crawl. Yep. The steep driveway and the wide front window between the driveway and the front door brought that night in nineteen seventy five back to me in living color.
There aren’t but a handful of streetlights in Lake Havasu City and there are still none within five miles of that street. The night was pitch black. It was hard to see the top of our tennis shoes walking.
There were people inside the house. It was winter and the front window was open. We could hear them talking inside.
I was half way under the wide window when I glanced back. Dave had stalled a couple of feet from the window. I waved him toward me silently, fighting back a snicker.
Dave was having serious second thoughts. Then again, he and JC were the smartest ones in the class. He shuffled backwards and headed back down the driveway.
I never did make the trek under the window to the front door. Still crouched in the middle of the window, hidden by the stucco area underneath it, without a coherent thought, I acted.
I jumped with my arms up like a gorilla, “AHHHHHHHH!!!!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
All four of them jumped, but none higher than the middle aged man with the glasses, hands locked behind his head, reclining on a green sofa, right next to the window.
I didn’t give much thought to that steep driveway. Not until I was sprinting full speed toward the road that I couldn’t see.
I can’t recall if I tore my jeans or shirt that night, but I remember vividly all the skin I tore off my palms skidding on the pavement. That’s close to instant justice.
A few days later, back at home, there was a group text going around the family. It was a video of my grandson, Mr. B, at his aunt Ali’s front door. Her Ring picked up a video of him ringing her doorbell and running… He’s three…


I think God has a sense of humor…
Sunday, February 23, 2020 @ 12:09 pm
I”m willing to bet there was a grandpa somewhere in the background giving hints and egging someone on to do what he did. 🙂 🙂 Made me laugh Floyd. I needed that.
Sunday, February 23, 2020 @ 12:19 pm
Oh, Floyd. I’m laughing out loud at the gorilla. My heart hurts for that poor man nearby, though. He could have had a heart attack. Yep, guess your scrapes were pay back. At least your grandson picked a flat get-away!! LOL
Sunday, February 23, 2020 @ 1:46 pm
That’s original. I bet they never left that window open again.. and moved the sofa!
Mr. B is original too. Love the idea of ringing the Ring and running away. LOL
Monday, February 24, 2020 @ 6:40 am
That was awesome!
Nothing more special than seeing a little of us in our kids or grandchildren!
Monday, February 24, 2020 @ 6:48 am
Too funny!!! I love the full sprint in the 2nd picture…
Reminds me of…. nevermind!
Monday, February 24, 2020 @ 6:10 pm
Love this post because I did a, sort of what I thought was a funny thing the other night to my grandsons and their three buddies. All six were camped out in the living room floor and Jared, our son had said his LAST I AM NOT GOING TO TELL YOU ALL AGAIN SPEECH, NOW BE QUIET AND GO TO SLEEP.
Unbeknown to him I had fixed a paper sack with eyes cut in it, nose, mouth with jaded teeth and hair drawn all over it and tip toed into that living room filled with boys. And in my most witchy, monster voice started saying, where are those boys, I am hungry for some little boys to eat, especially their toes. Then laughed like the witch in, Somewhere over the rainbow movie.
Screams hit the walls of the room and my son came running back into the living room, not knowing it was me causing the noise. By then the youngest grandson had punched me several times in the paper sack face and I was trying to get it off so he could see it was me. By then I am laughing so hard and THEN Jared realizes its was his crazy mother. He is yelling, Mom I just got them quiet what is wrong with you???? I said, in my best monster witch voice, I just wanted to have some fun…payback time buddy. Of course he is laughing by then, the boys are screaming, do it again, do it again, I want a mask, make me one. So I made each one of them give me their scariest monster witchy voice to see if they could do it.
It did take a while to get them quiet again and Jared is hugging me saying under his breathe, don’t do that again mom, you really sounded like a witch. I can’t wait to hear what the three boys staying all night told their parents about the crazy grandma.
I slept in this morning, that prank wore me out. The youngest tried his hardest to get Grandpa to get me up, he wanted his mask made. Love when our kids or grandchildren carry on some of the crazy things we did or do as grownups. It’s fun to be a kids again as a grownup. I love that your tricks made it down through the ages, someone has to carry these things on or the world would be so boring. I hope you have at least a little scar to go along with your story…I have a small bruise from being hit in the face but it will fade.
Tuesday, March 3, 2020 @ 4:28 am
Oh, Floyd, the mother-in-me wants to scold you. LOL.. But, I guess the “instant justice” said it all to you. LOL..thanks for the laugh.